Help:Editing Guidelines and Standards
Welcome to the Millikan's Reach Wiki! This page is built (although still incomplete) to aid contributors when editing pages, and ensuring guidelines are adhered to. While this may feel like a list that just tells you what to do, remember this: *These are generally not terribly hard standards, with some exceptions(such as policy on VisualEditor). These are mostly style guidelines, and a quick location for getting help on contributing in general. However, if you start getting flak about poor adherence to expected standards, you may want to tighten your own adherence to the standards. *This page is entirely for your benefit, not for control. Standardized guidelines and style makes everyone's job easier. Without further ado, the guidelines: ---- Overall Guidelines ---- *Be respectful of other users. If you have an editing disagreement, seek the guidelines and the thoughts of your fellow contributors. Directly personal fights will not be tolerated, however. Keep it civil. *Always read the guidelines for a page. It keeps everything simple for everyone and reduces the chance of the aforementioned rule being enforced. *Please attempt to keep a consistent style with other pages of the type you are creating/editing. If you are lost, try looking at an example of a well-written page as outlined below for each category. Editor Guidelines ---- To ensure that the code of pages remains stable and reliable to work with, there are several important rules for making edits. *PLEASE use VisualEditor ONLY for minor, text-only edits, as it rarely plays nice with literally anything formatted or other page elements. Use either the classic rich-text editor or the Source editor modes, as the so called "streamlined" experience with the VisualEditor breaks Templates, Tables, and just a whole lot of code that would then need to be cleaned by a more experienced contributor, wasting everyone's time. *Always read the editing guidelines for that type of page before making changes or a new page. We want a consistent style for the wiki, which much like Rule 1 saves time for everyone in later revisions. If you are creating a unique type of page that does not match a defined category, seek help from other contributors to try and maintain overall style. Message MadmanLava on Discord if you need help with using Templates, or the creation of a new Template or Navbox. *If you need to edit a section of code you don't understand, and cannot discern how to properly edit it on your own(use Preview to preview a page and check if it works), ask your fellow contributors. Someone is bound to know how to operate it or get ahold of someone who does. *Whenever possible, fill out Navboxes or Templates. Empty data spaces don't help anyone using the wiki for information, so if information is missing, seek it out in-game if at all possible. Seek help from other contributors if you are stuck. Editing Tips ---- You may be new to Wikia or our methodology and be thinking, "How do I even edit pages?" Not to worry, this guide and the rest of your fellow Wiki Contributors are here! Communication is important with running a wiki, so don't be afraid to ask for help either directly in a discussion or User page. If you want optimal communication, and a good time overall, join our Discord! As for the tips themselves, here you go: Change Your Default Editor to Source Editor ---- This is an easy one. At the top of your page, you will see your profile icon. Hover over it, and navigate to "My Preferences." Select the "Editing" tab, then in "Editing Experience" change "Preferred Editor" to either Source or Classic Rich-Text. Now, whenever you edit a page, it should automatically refer you to the raw Source editor rather than having to navigate to it. New User Guide to the Source Editor ---- New users to Wikia editing and/or our wiki may be unfamiliar with the editor used and how to use it. The Source Editor is a page editing mode that displays the raw HTML and Wikia code of the page(minus some basic HTML setup fluff that we don't care nor need to worry about.) Before proceeding to the guides below, please follow the guide outlined above to set your default editor to Source, otherwise you will have to navigate some menus to make edits every time. Basic Interface ---- Upper Left Corner: Shortcut Buttons These buttons insert snippets of code templates, such as the syntax for Bold, Italic, and internal links. The syntax for all of these are quite simple to understand, so generally its not necessary. Use them if you're still learning. Upper Right Corner: Summary, Preview, and Publish These are the more important of the Editor buttons. *The Summary box lets you enter a summary of the edit you are making, which will be visible in the history of the page. Use it to identify what you changed vs the previous version of the page. *The checkbox for "Minor Edit", if checked, will not display the edit to the page's edit history. *The two preview buttons let you see what the page will look like when fully published(though partially shrunk horizontally). The cellphone-looking one will show you the mobile version of the final page, you can safely ignore this. Click on the monitor-shaped one to see the true, full version of the page. Always use this to check if any code broke. *The "Show Changes" button will show you the line-by-line difference between the previous and edited version of the page. *"Publish" will finalize the edit, applying it to the actual page. Always preview the page fully to check for errors before publishing. Basic HTML and Wikicode ---- :Wikia pages are written in HTML and Wikicode. While thankfully we don't need any organizational HTML layers, just a basic knowledge of HTML and how you can manipulate text and images with. In addition, Wikicode consists of the integrated syntax and functions that come exclusively with a Wikia page-editing environment, such as the syntax for internal links. This guide is to teach you what you need to know. :If you need a more comprehensive and lengthy guide, check this excellent page from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Wikitext Quick HTML Basics ---- :In HTML, all elements begin with <(text here)> and are ended after what they are meant to effect with . In the editor, any HTML elements will be highlighted in a purplish, deep red color. If a large block of text is highlighted in this way when it shouldn't, double check that an HTML element was properly ended. Organization Syntax ---- :"Break" moves whatever text or elements that follow it one line below the previous line. Wikia enjoys "correcting" it to " " after publishing, this can be safely ignored. Physically just adding empty lines between elements in the Source editor can also have the same effect, but Break allows you to break multiple lines in the editing space of one, as well as ensure that the break is enforced no matter how the elements decide to play together. =header name here= header name here header name here :Headers are vital to any page. Adding another "=" to each end of the text will lower said header's hierarchy, with the highest tier header and any headers lower in tier than " " will NOT have a section edit button next to them. Any header's name and their nested position in the header hierarchy will be automatically added to and linked in the "Contents" box near the top of a page. It is recommended to add a Horizontal Line directly after a header larger than " ", though this is not an exact standard. ---- :This is a "Horizontal Line". A Wikia element, it will automatically separate the text above and below it with a fixed, horizontal divider line. Very useful for "blocking out" different sections of a page, preferably directly under any headers.. : :This is a paragraph indent. It must be the first character on a line, will indent everything directly after it, until a line break occurs, whether by a physical space or " ". It will not act as a traditional single-line indent on a word processor, and attempting to mimic one using spaces will simply have the same effect as ":". :This will exclude any included HTML or Wikia code elements from being run, useful for displaying code text without it being run, while also retaining the same formatting as normal text. :This is a useful HTML element for excluding text from usual formatting. Most useful in pages like this one, in order to show code without it actually being executed. Similar to NoWiki, but excludes the text from HTML formatting and uses the default code font. Templates ---- :Templates are a vital tool for wiki pages. Learn about each one and how to use them below. All templates are maintained by MadmanLava at this time. Infoboxes :Infoboxes are those tables on the top right of many pages that give a quick overview of the subject. One fills in data cells either with the visual editor or through direct editing of the template, which can be copypasted from the relevant page, in addition to a guide on what each cell means. *Template:Faction *Template:Station *Template:Ship *Template:Capital Ship *Template:Weapon *Template:Commodity Navboxes :Navboxes are navigation tools placed at the very bottom of a page, used to easily link together all pages of the same category. This aids wiki navigation overall, and drastically reduces the risk of orphaned pages. *Template:Navbox ship *Template:Navbox Commodities *Template:Navbox Terran *Template:Navbox Millikan *Template:Navbox IMC *Template:Navbox Cartel *Usage: Notice :Notices are placed at the very top of a page, used to designate that they have some sort of page-wide issue in need of addressing. These are to be used sparingly. *Template:Construction *Template:Outdated *Template:Style *Template:Stub *Template:Legacy *Usage: Style Guide Overarching ---- :Certain overall style standards are universal across pages. While looking at examples of well-written pages helps to intuitively learn these, it is important to have them written down. Headers, Sections, and Indentation ---- :Guidelines for Headers and the Sections they demarcate. *All headers larger than the smallest header size on the page(the more "="'s there are, the smaller it is) should have a "----" Horizontal Divider directly on the line after them(as long as said header is followed by text, and not just another tier of headers), as such: A Cool Header ---- *All text blocks below a section Header should be indented with ":", as such: A Cooler Header ---- :Some cool text! *All sections should be divided from the previous one by a line. =Another Cool Header= ---- :Some also cool text! =The Other Another Cool Header= ---- :The other also cool text! Faction ---- Location ---- Ship/Capital Ship ---- :Ship pages detail a particular playable ship, or NPC Capital Ship. Guide ---- :To begin a Ship page, the template Template:Ship or Template:Capital Ship must be used and filled out. Remember that this template must be the very first element of the page, ignoring any Notices. *'Overview' ::Overview should be the first header of the page. It should contain a general summary of the ship in question, though one should try to avoid excessive use of in-universe facts. Notes about the ship from a gameplay standpoint are preferred here. *'In-Game Description' ::In-Game Description follows Overview, the exact word-for-word in-game description of the ship should be placed here in quotes and italicized. Since capital ships do not have one, this section can be ignored. If Inferior Planet Games ever gives an official description, use that instead under "Official Description". *'History' ::See "History" in the Overarching guide above. Entries should be changes that affect the ship in-game. *'Gallery' ::See "Gallery" in the Overarching guide above. Main subject matter of the image should be of the relevant ship. *'Footer' ::The last part of the page should be the ship navbox template, Template:Navbox ship. Ideal Page Examples *Tyrfing Weapon :Weapon pages detail a particular weapon that can be used by the player or NPC ships. Guide ---- :To begin a Weapon page, the template Template:Weapon must be used and filled out. Remember that this template must be the very first element of the page, ignoring any Notices. *'Overview' ::Overview should be the first header of the page. It should contain a general summary of the weapon, though try to avoid excessive use of in-universe facts. Notes about the weapon from a gameplay perspective are preferred here. ::In-Game Description follows Overview, the exact word-for-word in-game description of the weapon should be placed here in quotes and italicized. *'History' ::See "History" in the Overarching guide above. Entries should be changes that affect the weapon in-game. *'Gallery' ::See "Gallery" in the Overarching guide above. Main subject matter of the image should be the relevant weapon. *'Footer' ::The last part of the page should be the weapon navbox template, Template:Navbox Weapons. Ideal Page Examples ---- *IMC 'Chainfire' MB-17 Commodity :Commodity pages detail information regarding the various commodities in the game. Guide ---- :Commodity pages begin with the Template:Commodity. This must be filled out and placed first on the page, barring any notices on the page. *''Overview'' ::Overview should be the first section on the page after the infobox. This section should detail a general overview of the item and should avoid excessive use of in-game facts of the item. This section should focus on how the item is projected in gameplay. ::In-Game Description follows Overview, the exact word-for-word in-game description of the commodity should be placed here in quotes and italicized. *'Footer' ::The last part of the page should be the commodity navbox template, Template:Navbox Commodities. Ideal Page Examples ---- *Computers